What Does a Physical Therapist Do? How to Explain PT to Patients

One of the core components of any PT marketing strategy should be to educate prospective patients and referrers on what physical therapy is and what exactly a physical therapist does. Often, people are not sure how a physical therapist differs from a doctor or a personal trainer. This misunderstanding can discourage people from choosing PT as a treatment for their pain. Let’s see how you can use your practice’s marketing to explain how physical therapists can help patients feel better.

Include a page about physical therapy on your website

In addition to listing your specific services and treatments, it can be helpful to have a page dedicate to describing PT and what a physical therapist does. Some key information to include would be a general description, what types of education and training PTs have, and any special certifications that your practice and staff have. This page should be written from the patient’s perspective—use easy to understand language and realistic examples. Walk the patient through a typical PT appointment and use images of gentle care to illustrate how therapy is not a workout, but instead a targeted treatment. Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

Have a section of your newsletter dedicated to general PT information

Have a small section of your monthly newsletter or e-newsletter that describes physical therapy in a few quick snippets. Think about a bulleted list and keep the content easy to understand. Here’s an example:

What does a physical therapist do?

• Evaluate your current condition and physical needs
• Creates a custom plan of exercises and stretches
• Work with you to ensure proper form and safety
• Provides hands on care, stretches and massages

Post personal advice and motivation from your physical therapists on social media

Everyone loves personal content, especially images, on social media. It adds authenticity and relatability to your posts. Try to incorporate at least one original post a week to your social media calendar. When it comes to explaining PT, who better than a physical therapist? Have each PT share something, such as “why they became a PT” or “what their favorite stretch is” and include a photo of them. You can also have patients share their testimonials and results (with proper permissions of course) and include a photo of them with their physical therapist.

Explaining physical therapy and what PTs do is critical to the success of your practice. Once someone understands how PT can help them, they will be infinitely more likely to call and book their appointment at your clinic. By being both the educator and the expert, you build credibility and showcase your skills.

For more information about PT and practice marketing, visit our blogs or schedule your free webinar today!

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5 Simple Marketing Ideas for Physical Therapists

Physical therapists and practice owners are experts in the care and treatment of physical conditions and help their patients achieve fantastic results. While you often spend your days focusing on the patients’ health, you also need to dedicate time and resources to ensure the health of your business. Every practice should be consistently marketing their PT services to prospective patients and doctors to ensure a steady flow of appointments and revenue. Let’s explore some PT practice marketing ideas and how you can implement them for your clinic.

Marketing Ideas for PT Practices

Start with the basics and build up your marketing program from there. Most PT practices face two challenges—not knowing where to start or starting too many programs at once and struggling to maintain them over time. All of your marketing ideas need to support at least one of the below basics:

• Market to past patients and existing referral sources
• Develop campaigns that you can execute consistently
• Run at least one promotion per month
• Drive online marketing efforts, such as emails or social media, to your website
• Maintain an up to date mailing list of doctors, patients and community prospects
• Ensure that all marketing programs align with your brand and mission

Now that you know the basics, it’s time to start developing your own marketing ideas that work for your PT practice. The team at Practice Promotions has years of success in helping our clients build marketing programs that generate results. Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

5 simple ways to get new patients and referrals:

• Choose a logo and brand identity for your practice that illustrates your PT mission
• Create a monthly campaign, such as a newsletter or postcard, that is mailed to past patients and referring doctors
• Schedule regular visits to local doctors’ offices and keep building relationships with them and their staff
• Make sure your website is up to date and follows website best practices
• Keep a well stock inventory of practice marketing essentials, such as brochures, rack cards, business cards, and giveaways, on hand for promotions and events

These marketing ideas are just the beginning—use them as suggestions to start building your practice’s marketing plan. The marketing professionals at Practice Promotions are also here to help. Give us a call today to schedule your free consultation and to start growing your practice!

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Online Marketing Ideas for Physical Therapy Practices

Online marketing is the big picture or 10,000 foot view of your PT practice’s digital marketing and online presence. For example, does your PT marketing plan ensure that your practice’s website content coordinates with your social media marketing? Has your practice been able to adapt to recent changes in social post content and formatting? Do you tailor your messaging to speak to the differences in audiences across Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn? Many physical therapy practice owners and even marketers have a difficult time keeping up with the latest online marketing trends and opportunities. The key is to make it easy to share information with your audience. Then, build the audience and get them to further engage with your practice online.

The goal of online marketing

Online marketing does a number of things, but first and foremost, it is a platform for spreading useful information about your PT practice. This information can serve a variety of goals—one of which is to highlight you as the experts to turn to when someone is in pain and needs PT. Online marketing also:

• Creates an digital presence that brands your practice and attracts new patients
• Makes it easy for new patients to find information about your practice
• Allows others, such as physicians and peers, to easily share your information

Coordinated marketing

Many practice owners struggle at getting new patients through online marketing. Because, they don’t integrate it as a part of an integrated practice marketing effort. When you only post to Facebook once or twice a month and don’t link those posts back to your site, you are missing out on linking your social media followers into a prospective patient population. You need to lead new patients back to on your website through coordinated content. Then, get them to call in for more information.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

Your website as the hub

Your website should be the hub of your marketing efforts, meaning that everything from print marketing to social media should direct potential patients to your website. From here, you have capture their attention and interest for them to call in and make an appointment for PT. This means that just having a website is not good enough. Your practice’s website needs to be able to convert visitors to patients.

At Practice Promotions, we design and create highly professional physical therapy websites that coordinate with blog posts and social media campaigns to funnel patients into your practice.

Call us today to learn more!

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3 Types of Holiday Postcards for PT Practices

The holiday season is a pivotal time for your practice and marketing plan. November and December are busy times for your patients and community. So, it is important to keep your practice top of mind during the holiday rush. One way is to send out holiday postcards to past patients and referral partners. Holiday postcards can be more than just well wishes—they can generate new appointments and referrals too!

The core component of effective postcard marketing is to keep it simple. You have limited space to convey your message so adding in too much can confuse the recipient. Instead, opt for a straightforward message that is both easy to understand and visually appealing. Let’s look at some ideas for holiday postcards for your PT practice:

Marketing goal: patient reactivation

The holiday season brings its own host of seasonal injuries and pains. Whether its cold weather joint stiffness, back pain from shoveling snow, or strains from carrying heavy boxes and decorations, the holidays are often a time for PT. But, patients usually drop this to the bottom of their long to do list. You need to emphasize the importance of taking care of oneself and staying healthy—so that they can truly enjoy the holidays.

Holiday postcards for patient reactivation should use realistic imagery like shoveling snow or carrying shopping bags. Include a thought-provoking headline, “Breaking your back shoveling snow? Or Are you in pain from decking the halls?” Next, use easy to follow steps to get patients to book an appointment. Lastly, drive home your CTA to get patients to call or visit your website to make an appointment today. It is important to drive home the “today” piece as many patients already have a million things going on during the holidays—they need to act now.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

Brand goal: community relations

The holidays are a great time to network with local businesses and organizations. We do not recommend sending out holiday postcards to individual members of the community. During this time of year, people’s mailboxes are already filled with catalogs and greeting cards. Instead, reach out to 3-5 community groups like the Chamber of Commerce, Junior League, Ruritan/Kiwanis Clubs, country clubs etc. Ask if you can distribute postcards at their holiday event or have some included in gift bags. This gets your postcard directly into the hands of a potential patient. Be sure to use a design and messaging that suits your audience—such as a higher end look for Junior League or country clubs, or a holiday-neutral theme for business associations.

Business goal: patient to patient referrals

During the holidays, people often meet up with friends and family that they don’t see throughout the year. This means catching up on how everyone has been doing the past months, which may mean talking about injuries or surgeries. What if your patients could help a friend or family member in pain by referring them to your clinic? Holiday postcards with a clear referral marketing strategy get patients to share their positive PT experience with others and to help them feel better. A referral incentive, such as a free item or gift card, can help encourage patients by keeping your postcard top of mind.

As the holidays approach, you want to have your practice’s marketing ready to go well in advance. You should coordinate your holiday postcards to be mailed by early December so that they arrive before folks are too consumed with seasonal events. If you are supplying postcards to a community event, you want to have them at the office at least 2 weeks beforehand so that they can be added to gift bags or programs.

Ready to order your practice’s holiday postcards? Visit us online or contact us today!

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How to Promote End of Year Insurance Savings to PT Patients

In today’s complex world of health insurance, many patients do not understand how to maximize their insurance program’s coverage. Specifically, patients need education on how to reduce their costs for physical therapy treatments. One of the easiest ways to save money on PT is to take advantage of your deductible spending at the end of the year. Practices should start marketing these savings in October to increase new appointments and patient visits in November and December.

It’s deductible season

At the end of the year, many patients have spent most or all of their insurance plan’s deductible. Patients with family plans, major surgeries, or chronic conditions are especially likely to have a $0 balance remaining on their out of pocket expenses. This means that the cost of physical therapy could be minimal or completely covered by insurance.

Another cyclical factor in patient insurance is annual plan changes and renewal. Many companies start promoting the next year’s insurance plans and coverage options in September or October. Thus, many patients decide to review their current coverage and see what they spent and what they should pick for the next year. Deductible spending is a big component of this insurance review.

How to explain end of year savings

First, keep the marketing content easy to follow and simple. We recommend mailing a letter campaign to promote deductible and insurance savings. This allows you to personalize the message with a proper salutation “Dear Mr. Smith” and drive home your mission of putting the patient first.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

Next, ask questions to prompt the patient to think about the answers. Some examples include:

• Have you reviewed your insurance plan and coverage lately?
• Did you already spend most or all of this year’s deductible?
• Are you in pain? Can physical therapy help?
• Do you want to save money on your PT costs and out of pocket expenses?

Lastly, give patients a simple set of steps to follow. You want them to be able to take immediate action and book their appointment for PT. Start with reviewing their plan and balance and move towards your call to action—contacting the office via phone or website to request an appointment. Hype the benefits of feeling better and ending the year healthy and ready for the new year.

After your letter is mailed, we recommend sending a follow up postcard 3-4 weeks later to reinforce your campaign and increase response. The postcard can also be tied to holiday marketing and seasonal messaging with the promotion to maximize end of year insurance savings. You can restate the steps from the letter and really emphasize the need to book appointments before the end of the year.

Ready to create your own end of year marketing campaigns? Contact the experts at Practice Promotions today!

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3 Simple Fall Marketing Ideas for PT Practices

Many practices see a surge of patients in the beginning of fall. Everyone is getting back into their routines, schools back in session, and sports are in season. This leads to a stacked appointment schedule and lots of revenue for your practice. Since more treatment courses last about 8-10 weeks, this busy season can last into mid-November. But, what happens next? The holiday season hits town and people’s schedules just don’t seem to have time for PT. Thus, many practices see a slowdown from December to January. What can you do to keep your appointments booked through the early winter?

Fall marketing and planning

1. Invest during the busy season

September and October bring a lot of revenue into your practice. Use that additional capital to invest in a major marketing project. Is your website up to date? Are you getting a lot of patients online? Investing in a website redesign and social media marketing program can be a great way to attract new patients and referrals. This also gives you the opportunity to market new services and promotions online. Additionally, a new website will be optimized for search engines—pushing your practice to the top of Google’s search results.

2. Plan your end of year marketing campaigns

Most practice send out at least one holiday marketing campaign at the end of the year. A holiday newsletter, postcard, or greeting card are effective at increasing brand awareness and generating new appointments. You want to start planning these campaigns in early October to ensure they reach patients mid-December. It is important to have your fall marketing hit well before the holiday weeks when mailboxes are full and folks are busy. Some practices even run a special promotion, “Book your first appointment before January 1^st and receive 10% off” (for example).

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

3. Get involved in community and seasonal events

Many local communities have lots of seasonal events in November and December. From 5K races to holiday parades, your practice can increase public relations and brand recognition by sponsoring or participating. Reach out to your local Chamber of Commerce to get registration information. Additionally, consider partnering with another provider group, such as a doctor’s office or dentist, to offset costs. Lastly, consider hosting a holiday open house at the practice. You can offer milk and cookies (and healthy snacks) and photo ops with seasonal themes. We suggest scheduling this for a Tuesday or Wednesday night so it doesn’t compete with people’s holiday party schedules.

The trick to navigating your fall marketing is to ride the wave of September and October into the early winter months. Keep your marketing consistent and plan ahead for special campaigns and promotions. For more physical therapy marketing tips, visit our blog or contact us today.

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How to Create a Patient Satisfaction Survey

Patient feedback is critical to the success of your PT practice. You need insights on treatments, staff, facility and communications. Sending a patient satisfaction survey helps you to gauge your clinic’s overall performance. It can also solicit new reviews and testimonials. There are several key elements within your survey design and execution that can make all the difference as to whether patients complete the survey and provide honest feedback.

Designing a Patient Satisfaction Survey

When it comes to your survey design, it is best to consider two criteria: effort and information. Your goal should be to create a patient satisfaction survey that requires minimal effort on behalf of the patient and your practice. While also maximizing the quality of the information received. Here are some strategies to accomplish those goals quickly and effectively:

• Use a free survey tool. There are plenty of great, free online tools that you can use to minimize your efforts in creating and managing the survey program. We recommend Survey Monkey for its easy set up and variety of plans and reporting options.
• Ask less than 10 questions. No one wants to spend more than 2-3 minutes completing a survey, so keep it short and sweet. Focus on the key areas of interest: treatment, staff, facility, communication etc. to streamline the survey and increase completion rates. It is helpful to order the survey questions in the same flow as the patient would have experienced their visit. For example, start with asking how the patient found out about your clinic. Then, end with will they come back to your practice for PT in the future.
• Use ratings to improve data and analysis. A ratings set could be—on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being Very Satisfied, and 1 being Not At All Satisfied, answer the questions below. This answer method allows patients to rate their satisfaction with their experience and helps to provide consistency across patient responses. It also avoids tying the ratings to an emotion (ie. happy v. unhappy). Emotions tend to be more subjective and less accurate in assessing the clinic’s performance.
• Include a write-in option for more details and reviews. Write in answers often have a very general question. For example, “Please provide more details and comments about your experience at ABC PT”. This allows the patient to leave a good review for their PT. Conversely, it also gives them the chance to write about a possible improvement to their experience. Place this question towards the end, but not as the last question, to encourage completion and quality feedback.

How to Implement a Survey

After you have designed your patient satisfaction survey, it is ready to be implemented into your routine marketing and communications. There are two key points in the patient experience where you should request feedback: after the initial visit and after the completion of treatment/discharge. There are pros and cons to each option. The right fit for your practice depends upon your current needs and observations.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

Are you seeing a number of patients who do not complete treatment or who are no-shows for the first appointment? If so, you should request a patient satisfaction survey after the first visit. This will help to identify what may be leading patients to not complete their care. It could be anything from poor scheduling by the front desk, to too long a wait time, to unclear insurance policies. Once you can identify what is happening, via the survey feedback, then you can work to correct the problem.

If you are seeing a good number of patients be successfully discharged, then request a patient satisfaction survey after the last visit. This will allow you to evaluate the patient’s experience throughout their entire course of care. Be sure to include a question about whether they would return to you for PT or refer their friends and family. Consider even adding an incentive, such as a $20 gift card, for a referral.

Patient satisfaction surveys are a mix of qualitative and quantitative analysis on the patient experience. You want to identify your learning and data goals, and minimize the effort to manage the survey program. You also want to maximize the information generated from the complete feedback. Learn more about PT marketing and patient engagement strategies today!

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How to Increase Patient Referrals to PT

Your past patients are one of the best marketing resources available. They have already experienced your practice’s expert care and seen great results—making them a real life testimonial for physical therapy. But how can you purposefully increase patient referrals to PT once the patient is discharged from the clinic? Let’s look at some easy ways to build patient referral opportunities into your marketing plan.

5 ways to increase patient referrals

Use a patient referral system. These systems allow past patients to easily refer their friends and family to your practice. Start by mailing a referral promotion in your practice’s newsletter or postcard. Next, distribute referral cards to all patients as they are being discharged from the practice. And, follow up with a thank you card to any patient that refers someone else to you.

Offer a referral incentive. People are more likely to complete an action, such as telling a friend to see you for PT, if there is some benefit for them. This incentive should be something they can readily use like a gift card or promotional item. It needs to have some real value so that the patient feels motivated to refer others.

Talk about it on social media. Almost every practice has a testimonial where one patient saw great results. Then, the patient referred a friend to PT, and that friend saw great results too. Turn that story into a social media post (with all the proper permissions) and share it out to your followers. People love “feel good” stories of friends helping friends and can relate to the desire to help others feel better and have less pain. Be sure to include a good call to action, such as “Who do you know that needs our help? Send them to PT today!” to increase responses.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

Send a patient referral email. If you already do email marketing for your practice, this should be an easy option. Send an email that describes the benefits of PT and includes a patient testimonial. Next, ask patients to forward the email to someone they know who is in pain or could benefit from PT. Tell patients that you will not be collected their friends’ email addresses. You want them to know that, by forwarding the email, they will be helping someone else to feel better.

Market patient referrals in your newsletter. Every month you have the opportunity to actively increase patient referrals when you mail your practice’s newsletter. Past patients are reading the newsletter and being reminded of the benefits of physical therapy. So it is the perfect time to encourage them to refer someone who needs PT to your practice. Include this referral marketing at the bottom of the exercises or articles so that they can directly tie your practice’s care and expertise to the opportunity to refer someone they know.

For more information on physical therapy marketing and how to increase patient referrals, check out our products and blogs. Contact the team at Practice Promotions today to start growing your practice.

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Physical Therapy Logos and Graphic Design

Your physical therapy practice’s logo should be an iconic visual representation of your practice. If any of your patients see the logo, whether it’s on a billboard, newspaper ad, or building sign, they should be able to instantly identify it and connect to your practice. Logos and graphic design are more than just creating images that look nice—branding, conceptual insight, and quality should inform and influence the imagery.

Your practice’s branded identity includes your logos (icon and wordmark) and their treatment across your clinic, print, and digital marketing. Having a distinct branded identity helps new patients identify your clinic and reminds past patients about your care and results.

But, there is often a case to refresh your logo and do a “rebrand” to update your logos. You can probably see plenty examples of old graphic design and physical therapy logos from other businesses and clinics. Having an outdated logo can create the public perception of being behind the times and not being cutting edge or relevant. You want to ensure that your physical therapy logos and marketing is on par with industry leaders. And, you want to have the best looking website and print materials.

Physical Therapy Logos

Logos should visually epitomize your practice and give the foundation of your company colors. Your logos and colors will combine to influence the look of your website and print marketing. Thus, choosing the right image, font and colors is crucial. Your logos should be simple so that they stand out—nothing is worse than a complex or abstract logo that is confusing and not grounded in your practice’s mission. It’s best to have a few different draft logo designs and colors, and then ask a group of peers and patients which they like best.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

Define your practice’s brand and visual identity

Whether it is your physical therapy website, newsletter or company materials, you need to have a beautiful, branded look. Everything should seamlessly carry through and really bring all of your promotions together. This makes it easy for a new patient, physician or the general public to identify your brand.

Need help with building your practice’s image and brand? We can help! From logo designs, websites, newsletters, brochures and more—we make your practice look professional to new patients and help to grow your business.

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How to Start Printing and Mailing PT Newsletters

Putting together a monthly newsletter for your PT practice can be a challenging task and take up a lot of time and money. As a key marketing program, a newsletter is an excellent investment that is most effective when managed by a professional company. If you have marketing staff in your practice, their job is to coordinate your strategies, develop professional relationships, and drive business development. Spending time designing, writing, printing, and mailing a newsletter is a full time job in itself and not a valuable use of your staff’s time. This is an action you should to outsource to maximize your resources in terms of both time and money.

Trust you physical therapy marketing to the experts at Practice Promotions. Our Practice Newsletter System combines professional, informative articles with custom content and pictures from your practice. We have a team of graphic design who create a template specifically designed for your practice—using your logos, colors, and branding. After you approve the layout and content, we print and mail your newsletters to patients and local physicians. We also will ship any extra copies to your practice (for free!) so that your marketing staff can distribute them in your waiting room and to physicians’ offices.

How it works

The team at Practice Promotions makes it easy for you to market your practice with a monthly newsletter. You are assigned a dedicated account manager who handles your content, revisions, mailing list, and printing. We use our industry expertise to get you reduced rates on printing and postage—a savings that can equal thousands each month. Our goal is to make it easy for you to send out a newsletter that promotes your brand, PT knowledge, and practice.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

Get results

We have over 5 years of experience as both marketers and private practice owners and have helped our clients see dramatic results. Visit our results page for more information and specific case studies on how our clients saved time and money and got more new patients and referrals—optimizing their return on investment.

For more information on our Practice Newsletter System, call us today at 800-594-7656.

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PT Practice Marketing Plan [How-To Guide]

How often do you plan out your practice’s marketing? Do you have short and long term plans—for the month, three months, or year? A marketing plan aligns with your business development goals and keeps you on track to see results for the practice. Your marketing plan should be your blueprint, roadmap, and checklist to build campaigns, organize promotions, and monitor the impacts. Every PT practice should have at least a monthly marketing plan to ensure that you are consistently communicating with prospective patients and referring physicians.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

Build your marketing plan

Your marketing plan should focus on the key audiences that will support your business objectives and the way in which you are going to encourage them to patron your practice. Most practices focus on patients and physicians, but you can also market to community organizations, healthcare centers, and businesses. Once you know your marketing’s recipients, you can identify what campaigns and promotions to use to engage the respective audiences. Below are some examples of different ways to market your practice:

• Mailing a monthly practice newsletter to patients and physicians
• Mailing a monthly physician mailer
• Sending postcards for targeted campaigns and promotions
• Emailing an e-newsletter
• Having a high-quality, responsive website
• Managing social media profiles and posts
• Networking with physicians and referral sources
• Sponsoring community organizations or events
• Having professional brochures, rack cards, and in-office promotions

The above marketing programs require an investment of time and money to develop and execute. In your planning sessions, you want to decide what programs to use to market your practice and how you will implement them throughout the month(s) or year. You can also identify “big” projects, such as redesigning your website or adding a new direct mail campaign, that require additional preparation to get started. Your practice’s marketing plan keeps your efforts on track and working towards the big picture—a busy practice that generates growth and revenue!

The team at Practice Promotions works with you to develop your practice’s marketing plan, complete projects, and monitor the results. We make it easy for you to put together amazing campaigns and programs that help your grow your practice. For more information, call us today at 800-594-7656 or contact us.

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Managing Your PT Practice Marketing Budget

What is the right marketing budget for your physical therapy practice? How should you be spending that budget to get the maximum amount of return on investment? Most practice owners know they have to spend money on marketing, but many struggle with finding the right balance and budget. Answering a few simple questions about your practice can help you define your marketing goals and the budget needed to achieve them.

Is your practice seeing growth, stability, or declines in patient volumes?

Most PT practices experience almost all stages of business development throughout the calendar year so take a look at your quarterly or yearly stats to determine your overall trend. At that larger view, practices tend to be growing, aka seeing more patients, or shrinking, seeing fewer patients. While growth is almost always the preferred state of the business, you can be intentionally scaling back due to market or operational constraints.

If you are experiencing a roller coaster, inconsistent growth or decline trends, it could be related to the effectiveness and consistency of your marketing program. You need to be marketing campaigns and promotions that are attracting new patients and referrals, and you need to be doing so on a regular basis to keep growing. Once you have a solid, successful marketing program, you want to keep investing in it. Monitor your volume of patients, explore new marketing opportunities, and plan your business development to align with your practice’s long term goals.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

What is the right marketing budget for your practice?

A standard rule is that you need to invest 8-10% of gross income on marketing to support business growth. However, many practices spend less than 5% of their gross income on marketing, which can lead to declining patient volumes or stagnant growth. Check your current budget by taking your monthly marketing expenses, without including any dedicated marketing staff, and divide by your monthly gross income.

(Monthly Marketing) / (Monthly Gross Income) = % of Income spent on Marketing

What is your practice’s marketing budget? If it is less than 5% of your gross income, you should try to spend at least 3% more on marketing per month and put that investment towards high return projects. We recommend improving your website, expanding your newsletter, or mailing monthly postcard campaigns. If you are spending more than 5%, you are on track! Closely monitor your data and consider scaling up your marketing budget and programs to align with your business development and growth goals.

Get the most out of your marketing budget and call us today for more information 800-594-7656

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Public Relations for PT Practices

Public relations is the practice of spreading information about your business to the public—focusing on communicating your mission, knowledge, and expertise. Public relations differs from marketing in that PR centers on building awareness of your practice’s brand whereas marketing promotes your practice’s programs and services to prospective clients. The perfect combination of PR and marketing creates compelling campaigns and promotions that encourage new patients, increase physician referrals, and expand business partnerships.

Public relations for PT include:

• Developing a practice mission. This should be 1-3 sentences that convey your point-of-view (POV) on physical therapy and how your practice approaches PT. Share your mission on your website, in printed materials, and in presentations. A good test of your PR and marketing is that each promotion and campaign should be able to relate back to at least one core component of your practice’s mission.

• Building your brand involves increasing its recognition with key groups, such as physicians, medical offices and their staff, and community organizations. You want these individuals to immediately think of your practice when they think about PT.

Download our free guide for tips on marketing your PT practice and getting more new patients

• Sharing practice news and updates. This is where PR and marketing can work together to attract new patients. The public relations efforts are directed towards writing press releases and copy for clinic news and updates. The marketing efforts are promoting this content in your monthly newsletter, on your website, and on social media.

• Handling the tough stuff. Occasionally, your practice might make news and not for positive reasons. You need to use PR to influence the media and public’s impression of your practice towards a positive light. Developing media statements, handling inquiries, and ensuring a consistent response keeps your practice looking polished and professional.

Public relations takes your practice’s brand and shares it with the larger community—helping you be known as the PT experts who achieve great results for their patients. For help with your PR and marketing, call us today at 800-594-7656 or contact us online. 

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2 Steps to Brand Your PT Practice

A brand is defined as a particular identity or image regarded as an asset of your company. The way your company looks and its messaging should be the same across all communications and platforms—from your website to your newsletter to your letterhead and envelopes. Your practice’s brand image defines the impression that potential patients and referring doctors will have of your practice. Thus, it needs to be professional, consistent, and memorable.

1.      Choose your brand image

Image is everything—from first impressions to conversion to loyal customer. Both consciously and unconsciously, people demand a certain look and professionalism from a business or service. So what is the right look for your practice?

First, it depends on your patient population, types of services and treatments, and location/demographics. For example, a pediatric clinic is going to have a different image as compared to sports physical therapy as compared to a physical therapy practice for Medicare patients.

Pro Tip: Make sure your colors are eye-catching and complimentary. Choose your inspirations from your natural environment and have a palate of 2-3 logo colors.

2.      Define your brand message

A brand message should be your practice’s tagline—a short 3-5 word phrase that epitomizes your mission and promotes your services. Look for positive, inspiring, and motivating words that encourage action. Be sure to include a concrete term or result…movement, motion, health, wellness, active, lifestyle etc.

Convey your expertise in a patient-centric and approachable way! Promote how you achieve exceptional results with your patients.  Use patient testimonials to add credibility and authenticity to this achievement.

Pro Tip: Stand out from the crowd with a brand message that is innovative and inclusive. Your practice’s demographics and services may evolve over time so you want to your brand to be able to flex with your changes and growth.

For more marketing tips and to talk to the experts, give the team at Practice Promotions a call today!

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5 Ways to Increase Physician Referrals to Your PT Practice

The best way to increase physician referrals is to have a rock solid answer to the question, “Why should a physician refer to your practice?” You need to be able to provide a quick soundbite that you can easily share.  Your soundbite needs to convey your expertise and success at helping patients feel better and get healthy. You also need to build the providers’ trust that your practice coordinates patient care and referrals effectively.

Make your physician referrals process easy

1. Have a “Physician Referrals” page on your website

This page should be prominently visible and easily accessed via your website’s navigation. It should include information about how to refer patients to your practice, phone numbers, fax number, and a frequently monitored email address. To increase the promotional messaging, consider having a patient testimonial and/or physician testimonial on the page to add credibility.

2. Have a dedicated phone number or extension for your referrals coordinator

Just like your own front desk, the doctor’s office staff is often busy multi-tasking and anything to streamline their efforts increases the likelihood of them referring patients to you. Even if your practice does not have a dedicated referrals coordinator, you should have a phone number or extension that is exclusive to physician communications. Use this number, in addition to your primary contact number, in your doctor marketing and be sure to check the respective voicemail box throughout the day.

Promote your services throughout your physician marketing materials

 

3. Provide informative content about the benefits of PT

Many physicians are aware of physical therapy at a general knowledge level, but they might not know all the benefits. The challenge is to present educational and specific information in a way that comes across as enlightening and helpful. Especially for physicians that specialize in areas that commonly refer to PT, you should list the specific benefits of PT for their patients and conditions. A physician mailer can be a great marketing campaign that allows for monthly topics that can appeal to different medical specialties. Physician mailer topics can include back pain, shoulder pain, post-surgical rehabilitation, and more.

4. Showcase patient success stories and physician testimonials

Patient success stories instantly add credibility and personalize your practice’s marketing. Be sure to include at least one patient success story in each campaign and, if possible, tailor it to the specific topic you are promoting. Another excellent marketing resource is to solicit physician testimonials or feedback from physicians who frequently refer to your clinic and whose patients have seen great results. These build your practice’s reputation in the medical community and can distinguish you from other PT clinics. Physician testimonials should include the providers name, specialty, practice name (if in a multiple provider group), and their recommendation of your care and services.

5. Include your referrals information on your print marketing pieces

Every marketing piece has the potential to generate a referral—so it is important that your referrals information is on there. Physician marketing campaigns should treat the referrals information with the same prominence as you would a patient promotion. Use appropriately larger fonts, bolded typeface, and noticeable designs to draw the physician’s attention and encourage them to refer their patients to your practice.

Physician referrals are one of the most reliable sources of new patients to your PT practice. Optimize your marketing to information physicians about your services, build credibility about your care, and encourage physicians to refer their patients to you.

For more information on building your physician referrals program, give us a call today!

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How to Increase Word of Mouth Referrals for PT

The most powerful form of advertising has always been and probably will always be word of mouth. PT practice marketing cannot compete with a personal recommendation from a trusted friend or family member. However, that also means that every patient who has a positive experience at your clinic can share word of mouth referrals about your care. It is your role as the practice owner or marketing manager to encourage patient endorsement by providing easy tools to foster word of mouth referrals.

Best practices for word of mouth referrals and marketing

Start by introducing programs and incentives for word of mouth referrals while the patient is active in their physical therapy treatments. This is when they are physically present in your clinic and seeing positive results from your care. You need to capture the patient’s feelings of happiness and achievement and convert them into a desire to share those emotions with their loved ones—by referring them to your practice. Train your physical therapists and the front desk to congratulate patients on their progress and asked them who they know that could benefit from being pain-free and actively mobile. Take time to listen to their friends’ needs and provide informative brochures on how PT can help. Lastly, explain your practice’s referral program and give the patient referral cards to share with friends.

Word of mouth referrals are a personal exchange—your patient is advocating your practice and care as a means to improve the life of a friend. You and your staff need to value this interaction and commit time to genuinely listen to your patient and encourage them to refer others to PT.

Empower your patients to spread word of mouth about your practice

Patients may hesitate to approach others and to recommend service or product, especially one that is related to health and personal wellness. Empower your patients and make this conversation easier for them by sharing your practice’s knowledge and expertise through marketing materials—referral cards, rack cards, newsletters and brochures. These materials put your deep knowledge of PT into the patients’ hands and allow them to be your brand ambassador.

Keep getting more word of mouth referrals

How do you continue to encourage past patients to send referrals? A patient from 2 years ago probably will not be actively talking about your practice unless they are reminded about their results from your care. This is where mailing a monthly patient newsletter can boost your word of mouth referrals program. Even if the patient is doing well and does not need PT, receiving an informative newsletter can spark their interest and may relate to a friend’s current condition. They can give the newsletter to a friend and talk to them about their positive experience at your clinic—providing a word of mouth referral.

For more information on increasing word of mouth referrals through your physical therapy marketing, call us today at 800-594-7656!

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How to Write Social Media Posts for PT

Writing effective social media posts for your PT practice is different than posting personal updates to friends and family. Your business page and its content needs to align with your overall brand strategy and marketing. There are also key considerations and insights that can be gained from trying different messaging and content strategies within a single social media platform. Let’s look at the different types of posts for PT practices…

The first step to writing social media posts is to identity the post’s goal—do you want to create brand awareness, market a new service, feature or staff member, or advertise a specific promotion? Brand awareness can be either your practice’s brand or that of physical therapy in general. In many cases, viewers may be unfamiliar with the benefits of PT so informative content can help to educate them on its value (and encourage them to visit your clinic for care). Marketing content, such as services and practice news, helps to add personality to your brand. Add explanations to the services and fun updates for news content to increase engagement. Promotional posts need to be clear and pointed, without losing your brand voice or being too “sales” oriented. Keep the promotion short and easy to remember, and include appropriate imagery to get attention.

Examples of Social Media Posts

The typical social media audience responds best to posts with images, either uploaded photos or links with thumbnail images. When writing your posts, think about the intended goal—brand awareness, marketing, or promotion—and tailor your content to that goal. Some suggestions for posts are:

Brand awareness: share a consumer-friendly post or article from the APTA or MoveForwardPT, link to an article about PT from health or fitness sources (magazines, influencers, or celebrities), or link to any awards or recognition articles that your practice has received, such as those from the local news or community organizations.

Marketing: link to your practice website’s pages on different treatments and services that are relevant or seasonal or create original posts with images to announce clinic updates. For example, in the winter, write a post about back pain from shoveling snow and link to your website’s page on back pain or write a post for golfers about getting back into the swing of spring and link to your shoulder rehab page. Original posts (those without linked content) are good for practice updates, such as announcing a new staff member (with a fun picture) or adding a new group exercise class.

Promotions: follow this easy formula to write promotional posts that get viewers attention.

• Start with a teaser sentence that keeps to your brand voice. “Time for spring cleaning! Get your house in shape without breaking your back”
• Introduce the promotion clearly, starting with the big payoff. “Get 1 Free Massage with the purchase of 4 sessions”
• Include any key specifics “Valid on session packages purchased in April.”
• Close with the Call-to-Action “Call us today at 800-594-XXX to book your next massage”
• Upload your promotional image (a stock photo of massage therapy with your promotion in a readable font) to stand out on newsfeeds.

Social media marketing might well be today’s modern newspaper ad (and it’s free!). Keep you posts aligned to a strategic goal, include relevant and interesting content, and monitor your insights and analytics to see what works best for your practice.

For more social media marketing tips and consultation, contact us today!

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Marketing PT to Athletes and Sports Teams

Athletes and sports teams are often in need of physical therapy services—from injury recovery to preventative treatments. Marketing your practice to athletes and sports teams can generate a steady stream of patients, especially during pre and post season training. There are several strategies to promoting your services to this key population including campaigns, sponsorships, and event marketing.

Athletic and Sports Marketing Campaigns

Most communities, from small towns to large cities, have a variety of sports and activities that keep residents busy throughout the year. Athletic and sports marketing includes more than just team sports (ie. football, soccer, baseball)—it also encompasses fitness activities such as running, swimming, and golf. Your practice’s campaigns can take either a specific, targeted approach or a more general health and wellness message.

Strategies for sports marketing are:

• Direct mail campaigns to teams or associations. Network with local club teams or associations, such as the travel soccer team or recreational sports department, to acquire mailing lists for direct mail marketing. Options include postcards or mini-newsletters that use messaging and imagery tailored to a specific sports. For example, if you connect with the local soccer league, you can send a postcard on knee injuries and the benefits of PT. Use soccer imagery and get creative with your headlines, “Don’t let knee pain keep you on the sidelines”.
• Email promotions. Send a promotional offer to athletes’ email addresses that markets a specific discount on your PT services. Choose services that are frequently needed by the specific sport or activity. For example, baseball players may need shoulder care during their pre-season conditioning. Offer one free appointment if the patients refers a teammate to your clinic. This referral-based promotion is especially effectives for teammates who all need to be a peak performance for the team to win. Include a “Refer a Teammate” CTA button on the email that links to your website’s referral form. Then, you can collect the friend’s information and call to follow up and schedule an appointment.

For more general fitness and wellness marketing, such as campaigns for runners or swimmers, go for a relationship-building and brand awareness strategy. These athletes are active year-round and thus, you want them to think of your practice first anytime that they are in pain or need PT. Brand awareness campaigns often do not drive a ton of appointments or engagement right away. The goal is to get your practice’s name and expertise out there often—driving home the message that your clinic provides the best care for athletes.

Strategies for general athletic and fitness marketing include:

• Social posts and website marketing. Brand awareness campaigns perform well through social media as the goal is to keep your practice’s name actively in front of potential patients. Try to send at least one post per week with an athletic or fitness message. Keep the message general, but include specific imagery that will attract runners, swimmers, golfers etc. Link these posts to your website and the specific page that discusses fitness or health and wellness. Your content should be meaningful—too many practice’s opt for general copy that doesn’t tell the reader anything new. Share your PT expertise with specific examples of how treatment can get the patient back to their active lifestyle. Include patient testimonials that are relatable, such as one where a patient was able to complete a long race or get back on the green after PT.
• Brochures, flyers, and advertisements. Spreading the word about your practice’s physical therapy treatments can also be achieved through passive marketing. Create a specific brochure for your fitness and wellness treatments—market any special equipment, certifications, and corresponding programs. Does your practice offer a free month of gym use following discharge? Include this prominently on the back panel. Have your marketing staff coordinate with local health clubs, YMCAs, and studios and leave copies of your brochures in the waiting room. Often, parents will browse this marketing while waiting for their children’s lessons to conclude.

Advertisements do not always mean a pricey TV ad or radio spot. Many gyms have several TVs throughout the facility that run a series of full screen ads for local businesses. Create a bold, easy to scan ad that clearly tells the viewer your practice name, PT services, and any promotions. A good rule of thumb for TV or banners is the “5 foot test”—if you stand 5 feet away from the ad, can you see and read the entire ad in 10 seconds? If not, then remove extra copy and imagery so that the ad can be quickly read. We recommend that banners include:

• 1 full color image showing a happy patient in PT
• 1 headline, max 6 words with at least a 48pt font size in a neutral color (Arial or Helvetica are easy to read fonts, white or black are readable colors)
• Your practice name and logo centered on the screen and at least the size of an index card (for the logo) and at 36pt font for your name

Marketing PT to athletes and sports teams can easily become part of your monthly marketing plan, with regular campaigns and promotions. Generating a steady flow of patients, who are active and want to return to their sport or fitness routine enables you to build brand awareness and a loyal client base that can refer teammates and friends.

For more on PT marketing, direct mail or digital campaigns, contact us today!

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Discounts and Promotions that Generate Patient Appointments

Most practices run a series of both recurring promotions, such as a Free Screening offer in the monthly newsletters, and seasonal offers to encourage patients to come to PT. Sometimes this marketing strategy works, and other times you may only get one or two patients who take advantage of the offer. What makes a campaign successful and drive patients to book appointment for physical therapy? Take a look at these key considerations in creating your next PT promotion.

Go with marketing over math

Use your retail shopper hat here. If an item is worth $10, it is better to say “Save 20%” or “Save $2”? Two dollars sounds small—the price of a coffee or a candy bar. But, “Save 20%” sounds like a big savings, even if it is the same discount. Think about your promotion like a savvy shopper and go for the sticker sell.

For a discount of $20 off a personal training session, which normally costs $60, your promotion should say “Save 30% Off a Personal Training Session”. A good rule of thumb is to always choose either the dollar value or percent savings with the larger number (ie. 30% is greater than $20).

Give value to your promotions

Offering something for “free” doesn’t necessarily correlate to a savings or discount to your patients—unless they know the full price value of the service. If you would normally charge $35 for a 15 minute free screening, market the $35 value of the free offer. “Get One Free Screening, a $35 value” gives quantifiable weight to your standard promotion.

Use orange in your promotion design

It might sound too easy, but people inherently associate the color orange with savings. The prominence of orange in advertising, from car commercials to store sale stickers, has lead our minds to psychologically associate the color with a discount. You can use orange subtly so as to not conflict with your brand and marketing style guide. Think about adding an orange flag to the corner of your marketing or a dashed, orange border around your coupon.

Avoid excessive capitalization and punctuation

It can be tempting to add @#!! to EVERYTHING to draw attention to the offer. But extra punctuation and all caps doesn’t equal increased engagement or patient visits. You want your practice to maintain a professional voice and consistency in its marketing communications. Reference the advertisements for corporate services, high-end retailers etc. These promotions typically use a clean, readable font and standard grammar. Mirror these style guidelines for your promotions.

Keep key details minimal, but prominent

If you have a coupon or printed promotion, be sure to include your practice logo, name, and phone number so that the patient can call to redeem the offer. Even if this promotion is included with other marketing materials, the paper may become separated and thus needs to stand alone as an individual component. For digital promotions, such as social media or email offers, include a link to your appointment request form or contact us page to facilitate easy booking.

For more tips on physical therapy marketing and promotions, check out our blog posts or call us today!

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How to Get More Referrals for Post-Surgical Rehab

For many patients, post-surgical rehab and physical therapy go hand in hand. After a orthopedic surgery, joint replacement, or injury, PT can be one of the most effective treatment options that both restores mobility and function, while keeping the patient active. Rehabilitation patients are often known for coming to all their appointments, working hard, and achieving great results—creating a mutually favorable relationship. So how can you get more physician referrals for post-surgical rehab?

Network with surgeons and specialists

Even in large communities, there are often only a few top doctors that perform orthopedic surgery, joint replacements etc. This niche market is prime for a strong referral network. Start by researching who the key doctors are in your local area. See who already refers to you and who you want to start referring patients. Once you have this list, begin your referral marketing campaigns and public relations efforts.

• Check that these professionals are on all your mailing lists for direct mail marketing campaigns.
• See if you have extra copies of your post-surgical rehabilitation mailer and send one to each physician at least once a quarter.
• Look for patient testimonials from past referrals. Send a personal note or card and include a copy of the testimonial inside.
• Call the office and see if the physician is available for a quick coffee or lunch. In person meetings can be both marketing and PR opportunities. Use that time to make personal connections, share stories (ie. “talk shop”), and build a relationship.

Promote your post-surgical rehabilitation services

As a key source of both referrals and patients, post-surgical rehab should be prominently featured in your print and digital marketing. Look for opportunities to reference these treatments, special equipment, and staff certifications in all your key services. Do you have a webpage on knee pain? Include a short paragraph about post-surgical rehab post knee replacement surgery. Marketing campaign and promotions ideas include:

• Newsletters and physician mailers on post-surgical rehab. Include patient testimonials and results to personalize the content.
• Brochures and rack cards. Keep these on hand to distribute to doctors, at events, and in the office. If you frequently work with athletes or sponsor sporting events, these can be included in the giveaway bags.
• Website. Have a dedicated page on your website that describes post-surgical rehab, the PT treatments, and the improvements to recovery. Include specific testimonials on the page to highlight your successful care.
• Postcards, email campaigns, and social media. Post-surgical rehab is not for every patient so be careful about over-marketing the service. Consider sending a targeted promotion once a year—say during the spring or fall sport seasons, to market your practice’s treatments.

Defining and growing small segments of your practice’s patient population can lead to big results for both your marketing and business. Post-surgical rehab may only be a few patients a month, but you can turn that service into a major source of physician referrals, patients, and revenue for your practice.

For more marketing tips and business consultation, contact the experts at Practice Promotions today!

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How to Overcome PT Reimbursement Challenges

As the insurance landscape continues to change and evolve, physical therapists are struggling to overcome reimbursement challenges. Practice marketing expert, Neil Trickett, has a one minute video with tips and strategies to improve your practice’s finances and management.

Click the video above to watch and learn!

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How to Host a Physical Therapy Workshop

Many people have not been to physical therapy and may wonder what goes into a course of PT treatment. Will it feel like a workout with a personal trainer or an alignment at the chiropractors? One way to demonstrate the types of treatments and their effects is to host a physical therapy workshop. This gives you the opportunity to show prospective patients PT in action, share your expertise, and help them feel better—building community engagement and public relations for your practice.

Tips for hosting a successful physical therapy workshop

Choose the right location and audience. You want your workshop to be held in a space that easily accommodates demos and exercises without a lot of set up. And, you want to attract attendees who can really feel the benefits almost instantly.

• Look for community centers, retirement communities, or athletic facilities that have large, open rooms with space for both a seated information session and active demos.
• Target a small population segment. Open houses are best suited for general interactions and can be held at the clinic to show off your practice. Physical therapy workshops should bring your services into the marketplace and create a comfortable space. Invite groups of people who already have a shared connection, which can encourage attendance and provide support. Groups such as retirement communities, civic groups, or faith-based programs can be a great source of connections.
• Set a minimum and maximum number of attendees. You don’t want to have 30 people show up in a space that is meant for 12. They might feel crowded or have trouble hearing/seeing the presentation. Plan the maximum headcount so that each person can have both a chair for the info session and a floor space, say the size of a yoga mat, for interactive demos. You also don’t want only a few people to show up as they might feel uncomfortable trying exercises in a small group. We recommend having at least 6 people to encourage engagement and boost morale.

Focus on the interactions and not the presentation. Remember in college when your professor droned on and on about something and you felt like you were in a trance. Don’t become Professor Boring! Plan your content and agenda to keep the audience engaged.

• Start with an activity. This immediately sets the tone that you will be hosting a fun, interactive physical therapy workshop. Ask participants to do a few simple stretches in their chair to gauge their mobility and flexibility.
• Keep the presentation short and relevant. Don’t go into philosophical backgrounds or the history of PT. Focus on your clinic, your services, your certifications, introduce staff at the event, and emphasis the benefits of PT.
• Change presenters. As the practice owner, you should probably lead the presentation and then let a lead PT coordinate the demo. But, if you really aren’t a fan of public-speaking, then let someone who likes the stage take the lead. Introduce yourself and spend time creating one-on-one interactions with attendees.

Bring your marketing materials and giveaways, plus food and drinks. It’s a no-brainer to bring your practice brochures and flyers, but be strategic about how you hand them out. Giveaways, food, and drinks always add to the event and you can quickly throw together a strong physical therapy workshop spread.

• Use your brochure during the information session. Have a copy available on every seat and walk through your services, practice history etc. during the presentation. This makes the participants actually read your brochure and get valuable information.
• Have plenty of old newsletter available. Bring several on a variety of topics and have extra copies to encourage attendees to share them with family and friends. Also, have a sign up station where people can opt-in to receive mailed newsletters and other promotions.
• Bring fun, seasonal giveaways. If you are hosting a physical therapy workshop in the warm weather, bring sunblock sticks and water bottles with your practice logo. Cold outside—create small goodie bags with tissues, chapstick, and hand sanitizer for some healthy winter giveaways.
• Keep the food and drinks simple. You want people to remember the workshop and not the meal. Opt for healthy options like veggies, dip, crackers etc. Avoid nuts and other allergens. Go for individual drinks, like mini water bottles or juices, that don’t require pouring and open cups. Spills and hot beverages can create commotion and a mess during the demo.

Hosting physical therapy workshops gets easier with practice. Set a goal to host one a quarter each year and try a variety of formats and venues. Tailor the presentation and demo to the intended audience, such as mobility and balance for seniors and injury prevention with flexibility for athletes.

Our last tip is to have a follow up engagement plan. Send a thank you letter to attendees approximately 1-2 weeks after the workshop to remind them to come see you for PT. Include a promotion, such as a free screening, and track the responses!

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Instagram, Snapchat—What’s Next for Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is ever evolving, from new updates and features to entirely new platforms. For most PT practices, it can be challenging to keep up with the latest trends and manage your existing platforms. How do you know where to put your resources and time? What platform is giving you the best return on investment? What is the true value of social media?

Social Media Marketing and the Big 3

Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the big 3 of social media. With the lion’s share of active users, these platforms have key similarities and differences that make them still one of the most wide spectrum lenses of business’ social media marketing. Twitter continues to grow in followers and increased engagements, quickly becoming the top social media platform for many objectives. Tweets are short, sweet, and to the point. You can send 2-3 tweet per day without risking being too spammy for followers. Twitter also continues to roll out advancements that boost performance. For example, Twitter Cards are simple codes that you have a developer add to your website. Once that code is properly installed, your tweets automatically have added features that increase impressions, clicks, and engagements. If you aren’t already using Twitter or Twitter Cards, learn how to get started today.

LinkedIn also continues to grow in users, though it is decidedly more oriented towards professionals and job seekers. PT practices benefit from using LinkedIn for two main reasons: public relations and recruitment. LinkedIn is a great platform for connecting with doctors, medical representatives, and professional organizations (ie. APTA). Maintaining a business profile and syncing your regular social media posts to go to that account keeps your presence active without adding much additional effort. You can also easily recruit new PTs and staff through LinkedIn and those candidates will often check out your business page to get a feel for the practice. We don’t recommend spending more than 30 minutes or so a week on LinkedIn (unless you are actively recruiting) as the ROI in terms of getting new patients is not really high for this platform.

Facebook continues to be a front-runner for social media, but is starting to see a decline in both users and engagements. Most practices are already active on Facebook and this platform is the bulk of their social media marketing. We definitely recommend continuing to market your practice on Facebook, but monitor the engagements. Also, if you are running monthly paid marketing campaigns—closely watch the quality of the results as compared to your business metrics. Are you seeing a lot of likes, but not necessarily new patients? As more customers leave Facebook in favor of other platforms, you might not be able to attract the same quality leads.

The Future of Social Media Marketing

As the playing field changes, your marketing needs to adapt to the new ground rules. If a new platform gains traction (think Instagram, Snapchat etc.), be sure to set up your business profile to ensure that you protect your brand image. Whether Instagram is the next Facebook (or not), you want to ensure that your practice’s name and  account are secured for future use and marketing.

If you do want to try a new social media marketing tactic- start small and closely monitor the results over time. Its easy to see huge growth in the beginning and have that taper off after a few weeks. Conversely, it might be hard to get the wheels turning with attracting new followers and figuring out what to post and when. The new platforms are not a one to one match to Facebook. They are more specific and require different marketing strategies and content.

Want to learn more about social media marketing for PT practices? Stay tuned for new blogs and tips to help you maximize your results!

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Best Practices for Reactivating Patients

Reactivating patients is key to building a loyal group of clients that both visit your clinic and that refer their friends and family to your practice. There are two key strategies for reactivating past patients—including targeted messaging or content in routine marketing campaigns, such as your practice newsletter or on your website, and creating specific promotions to drive reactivation, such as a postcard or incentive program. Let’s look at best practices for both strategies to see what is a good fit for your clinic and when to use different tactics.

Reactivating Patients with Monthly Marketing Campaigns

One of the easiest ways to grow your practice is by reactivating past patients. These individuals have already experienced great care and PT with your clinic and are significantly more likely to return for future needs. Think about a patient like a car owner—most people will continue to buy the same make of car if they have a good experience with their previous model. And, if they receive good customer service at a local dealership, they will be much more likely to purchase another vehicle from them. The same goes for physical therapy, if someone has a good experience and feels better after PT, then they will be more likely to seek PT over other treatment options in the future. And, if they receive quality care and customer service at your clinic, they will be more likely to return to see you for PT.

Your monthly marketing campaigns should also include content and messaging that capitalizes on reactivating past patients. But, you need to be sure to refresh that marketing occasionally to ensure the message stays current. Try these ideas to keep your reactivation marketing fresh:

• Use seasonal imagery and messaging (think snowflakes for winter or gardening photos for spring)
• Change the incentive bi-monthly to attract different patients. You can offer a Free Screening, 10% Off, or a Free Exercise Class—each will resonate differently with patients.
• Move the layout and placement. If you usually feature the reactivation marketing on the last page, try moving it to the exercise section or the mail panel.

Your monthly marketing campaigns almost always reach past patients and are the perfect place to promoting reactivation.

Reactivating Patients with Promotions

Look back at last year’s monthly stats—when did your practice experience a dip in patient volumes? Now look 2 months ahead of that dip, that is when you want to start running a promotional campaign to reactivate past patients. Promotional campaigns can take on a variety of tactics. One consideration is that you should be able to execute these promotions quickly and without a lot of effort or costs. We recommend postcards and email marketing as two easy and inexpensive options.

Postcard promotions should include eye-catching imagery, simple text, and a big Call-to-Action (CTA). Reactivation campaigns can perform well with pain imagery, really driving home the need to go the PT. Lighten up the tone with positive copy “Ready to be Pain Free?” to keep the messaging positive. Use your practice’s brand colors to create a big CTA and include an expiration date. The date encourages people to mark their calendars and get into PT sooner to be able to take advantage of the offer.

Emails can also drive reactivations especially for practices that do not have monthly email marketing campaigns. These almost act like a digital postcard. Keep the messaging and content short and sweet. Try using healthy imagery and positive messaging for emails. Patients tend to find negative or pain messaging discouraging online and often respond best to a happy photo and encouraging message, “Get Back in the Game” with a picture of grandparents playing ball with the grandkids for example. Include a big CTA “Click to Book Your Appointment Today” and include an expiration date.

Want more best practices for physical therapy marketing and business management? Check out our blog or call us today!

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Marketing Analysis for PT Practices

Our last blog talked about using your practice’s data and statistics to prepare your annual marketing plan. Now let’s dive deeper into marketing analysis and how to choose the right campaigns and promotions to reach your practice goals.

Growth trends are when your practice is seeing an increase over the last time range measured. This could mean that you saw more patients or received more referrals than the same time period last week or last month, depending on your statistic range. Growth trends should be celebrated, and they should also be reviewed to see what caused the increase. A marketing analysis can indicate whether the growth was due to internal or external factors. Internal factors could be sending more newsletters, mailing a new postcard campaign, or posting more on social media. External factors should also be considered and could be changes in the competitive market, changes in your practice operations (ie. appointment hours or accepted insurances), or new legislation such as direct access.

Flat trends occur when your stats are consistent for a time period. Don’t get too bogged down in the details of consistent. If the change is less than 5-10% (depending on the size of your practice) then it is most likely a flat trend. A marketing analysis for flat trends should include reviewing routine marketing campaigns to see if they need to be refreshed. If you have been sending out 4,000 newsletters per month to the same address and aren’t seeing growth, then its time to revamp your marketing. This could mean getting a more up to date patient list, increasing the number of pieces (we recommend adding 500 pieces to start), or sourcing new content to increase engagement. Not all flat trends are bad—if your practice is operating at 90-100% capacity and seeing flat trends then you are right on track! Now would be the time to do a more business oriented analysis to determine whether you need to expand operations or if you are on a sustainable track.

Loss trends usually strike fear in the heart of practice owners and marketers. Instead, look at a loss as an opportunity and not a failure. A marketing analysis of a loss can be infinitely more beneficial than an analysis of a growth or flat trend. When analyzing the loss, keep an open mind and explore different possibilities—both internal and external to your clinic.

Marketing Analysis of Loss Trends

If you experience a loss trend, there are typically two factors: seasonality or market change. Seasonality can be determined by looking at that month’s stats for the year prior. If you experience a similar trend last year, this year’s trend (if it is roughly the same) is due to seasonal impacts. Most practices see season losses during the later summer months (July and August) and winter holidays (December and January). A marketing analysis and recommended course of action for seasonality is to increase marketing campaigns for the 4-6 weeks prior to the loss month. For example, if patient volumes drop off in December, then increase your newsletters, social media, and promotions during October and November to bring in a steady stream of patients through the end of the year.

Market changes occur when there is an unexpected loss trend—something that is unprecedented based on last year’s or last month’s data. As soon as you see a market change that leads to a loss, start your marketing analysis. External factors can drive changes are might be easier to identify so we recommend starting with them first. Some example questions to ask are:

• What is the competitive landscape? Did a new practice open? Did a competitor expand their offerings or network (ie. merge with a hospital)?
• What about your referral relationships? Did doctors change offices or leave practice? Check your relationships by comparing this month’s referrals to last months.
• Did your state adopt direct access? Did a major insurance company change its policies?

All these questions can quickly help you identify if an external factor resulted in a loss trend.

Internal factors are sometimes harder to identify. We suggest taking a look at last month’s marketing to see if anything changed. Some key items to check are:

• Direct mail marketing quantities: did you decrease your number of mailed pieces?
• Frequency of blog posts or social media updates: did you post less often or are you not as active on a certain platform?
• Business operations: did you change your hours, staff, or services offered?

All of these factors are critical to performing an accurate marketing analysis. If you answered “yes” to any of the above, then your loss trend is caused by an internal factor.

Now, what should you do? Get back on track! If you decreased the quantity of mailed marketing pieces, increase back up to the previous levels (or send extras to offset this month’s loss). If you changed your digital marketing, consider going back to business as usual or move forward with the changes, but look at other options to increase communications.

Business operations are often the toughest challenge to solve as these decisions are usually made after careful review and planning. But, you can use marketing to compensate for business changes. If you shortened hours or decreased staff, send more pieces to drive up volumes (to a manageable level). If you changed your service offerings, consider running a special promotion hyping a treatment that you don’t usually market such as neck pain relief or post-surgical rehab.

A marketing analysis takes your practice’s statistics and provides realistic solutions to the trends experienced. Once you develop the habit of doing monthly and annual analyses, you will be able to quickly adjust your business and marketing operations to support goals and financial objectives.

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Preparing Your Annual Marketing Plan for Private Practices

As the year comes to a close, it’s time to start your annual marketing plan for the coming year. Whether this is your first year writing an annual plan or you’re a pro, there are some key best practices that can take your marketing and clinc to new levels for next year. The goal with any annual marketing plan is to look back at last year and learn from your experiences. Then, take these learnings and develop projects and goals to support your business development.

A Year in Review: Data and Statistics

Pull your monthly reports for patient visits and doctor referrals (add other reports as helpful). Now pull the year prior (2 years ago) to do a year over year and month over month analysis. Your objective is to take a quick snapshot to see trends in visits and referrals and to identify any changes that could have contributed to these trends. For the year over year analysis, did you see more patients and get more referrals (ie. Did your business grow, stay consistent, or decline)? Both growth and consistency are favorable outcomes—sometimes depending on the month, business and market changes etc. a month of consistency can bring stability to your practice and staff. If you saw a drastic increase in appointments, what could have contributed to this growth? Did another clinic in town close, did you add a new PT, did you extend your hours? Be fair and realistic when reviewing your stats—it’s tempting to attribute all growth to “doing a good job” but there are usually quantifiable factors that influence the business.

Now look at the month to month statistics: which three months were your top performers and which were the three worst? Typically, year to year, certain months or seasons see consistent growth based on the month prior and year prior. And certain months (usually around the winter and holidays) are slower or experience a drop in volumes. Now look at your top three months as compared to the marketing campaigns and promotions. Did you revamp your website, increase newsletter quantities, or mail a postcard? Or did you add staff, offer a new treatment, or expand your hours? All of these factors can help determine what worked last year in terms of getting more patients to PT and what you should continue doing or implement for the coming year.

Your annual marketing plan should also work to improve periods of decreased volumes. Did you experience a winter slump? Are summers slow due to vacations? Do you have a seasonal population (ie. snow birds or college students) that impacts monthly and annual numbers? Identifying these declines and planning to offset them via your annual marketing plan is key to continuing to grow and stabilize your practice. Our next blog post will dive deeper into how to choose the best marketing solution to suit your business development plans, but let’s take a high level look at some planning methods and options.

Planning Ahead with an Annual Marketing Plan

Your annual marketing plan shouldn’t be a huge PowerPoint presentation or binder full of calendars that gets stuck on a shelf from February to December. To be truly valuable and successful, your annual marketing plan needs to be organized, realistic, and responsive based on your practice’s needs.

Be organized. Develop a process that works for each month regardless of the season. Your marketing plan should have a monthly checklist for routine projects and then a calendar overview with special events, holidays etc. Don’t go overboard—we have all seen the monthly calendars jammed with marketing campaigns that never get executed because reality sets in. Your annual marketing plan is a plan not a to-do list. For example, to offset the holiday slowdown, put a calendar event for “Planning Session: December marketing revamp” in September so that the end of year work is already on your radar and that you have enough time to execute new campaigns.

Be realistic. A good checks and balances for your annual marketing plan is to set a list of goals to achieve for the year ahead. The practice’s business development goals should be heavily utilized to inform this list. If you want to increase patients by 10% then develop marketing goals to achieve that figure. Maybe you want to increase newsletter mailings to an additional 500 patients, add a new social media channel, and expand your partnership with the rec soccer league. These are all strong ideas to use marketing to grow your practice and can support the 10% growth goal. The key is to be realistic and don’t attempt to accomplish all key initiatives in January. Work on these big projects one at a time and space them out for a few months or quarters.

Be responsive. In 12 months, the clinic and its marketing program could have totally changed. Your annual marketing plan needs to be flexible in order to be truly helpful throughout the year. If you monthly data and statistics review indicates an increase or decrease in volumes that was not experienced last year, you should respond to that change and adjust your planned marketing. For example, in October, a nearby clinic closes and you start seeing a growth in patient volumes. But, your marketing plan says to increase campaigns and promotions to offset the winter slump. If you don’t revise your plan to reflect the growth trend, you could increase marketing and generate patient volumes that are not sustainable for the clinic. Instead, repurpose your November and December efforts to refreshing and reprinting your new patient packets. This change of course ensures that you keep marketing, but that you focus attentions toward projects that are needed in the moment.

For more help analyzing your statistics and preparing your annual marketing plan, talk with the experts. Our team has helped practices, large and small, develop sustainable campaigns and projects that complement the practice’s annual marketing plan. Give us a call today!

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